22/03/2013

Margaret Mumbi Mongare, Making the World a Better Place.

In less than a
month, Margaret Mumbi Mongare, class of 2010, would graduate from Smith College
with a major in biochemistry and a minor in economics. In July, she would step
into the Broad Institute laboratory, a laboratory highly regarded for research
in cancer, where she has landed a two-year appointment as a researcher, a story
from the Smith College Website starts.

For now, as she
munched a turkey sandwich, Mongare wasn’t yet focused on the meticulous journey
she had mapped out for herself: completing two years of laboratory research
focusing on applying genomic tools to the classification and study of cancer;
enrolling in medical school in fall 2012, perhaps earning her doctorate from
Harvard; returning home to Kenya as a practicing physician, possibly working
with the World Health Organization in Africa creating self-sustaining, reliable
and accessible health-care systems to many of the continents ailing poor.

She was
concerned with the text messages flying back and forth between her mobile phone
and that of her honors thesis adviser, Steve Williams, Gates Professor of
Biology and Biochemistry, one of the world's leading experts on filarial
parasites- parasites that cause many of the tropical diseases, like
elephantiasis, that Africa encumbers everyday.

She was asking
for his help troubleshooting a problem she was having with her lab project.
Williams responded almost immediately and offered, via text message, possible
times to meet that afternoon.

“He really
believes in his students, he’s always there to help,” she says of Williams,
whose laboratory focuses on research designed to find out the molecular biology
of the parasites that cause elephantiasis and African

river blindness. “In the
lab, he always makes you feel as if you knew the answer all along, there was
just one missing part to figure out. Working with him has enabled me to do a
lot of independent research on my own.”

Mongare is no
stranger to research. In the summer of 2009, she was selected for a summer
fellowship at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, where she investigated the various
causes of organ dysfunction in the school’s molecular biology research lab.
During her senior year, she was a student fellow with the Kahn Liberal Arts
Institute researching “Wellness and Disease” in a multidisciplinary setting.
Collaborating with Smith professors from a variety of departments, including
psychology, anthropology, philosophy and biological sciences, she focused on
the ethics of future genetic medicine.

“I’ve come to
realize that to gain so much experience with research and to build these
multiple skills is not always possible in a liberal arts college environment,”
she notes. “But at Smith, it certainly was possible, and I’ve not limited
myself to science. I’ve come to be able to look at the big picture and
different ways of thinking about social issues.”

An international
student from Nairobi, Kenya, Mongare has been home only
once in the four years she has attended Smith. She attended Smith courtesy of
the Zawadi Africa scholarships. The first two summers she stayed on campus. One
summer she joined a research project led by professors in the biology and
neuroscience departments. The next, she assisted Williams, who directs the
prestigious summer workshops program at Smith.

But soon she was to
return to Nairobi,
for six weeks. In June of 2010, she and Marguerite Davenport, a fellow of the
class of 2010, planned to establish a learning and mentorship center at the Babo Dogo Primary School, a public primary school in the
outskirts of Nairobi.
The two Smith seniors were among 100 undergraduates from 90 colleges and
universities, who won the monetary awards to execute their own public service
projects, with $10,000 (800,000 shillings), in funding.

“Smith women are
changing the world,” says Mongare. “And like them, I want to be the one who is
reaching out, trying to make the world a better place.”